Free The Monsters in Your Neighborhood by Jesse Petersen

was quiet for the rest of the ride and the walk up to Drake’s apartment. Natalie knocked on the door, and as they waited for one of the guys to open it, Kai looked at her.
    “I get that it must be freaky to realize there are other Creatures out there when you thought you were alone,” she said. “But don’t let it put you off your game, Natalie.”
    Natalie looked at the mummy. It was so easy for Kai. She’d had Rehu out there for as long as she’d been a monster. They might have fought, but she’d always known what it was like to have someone of her kind out in the world. Natalie had spent decades thinking she was an endangered species. Now she wasn’t alone and it frankly freaked her the fuck out.
    The door opened before she could admit all that, and revealed Drake himself. He had a little color in his cheeks, his hair was combed. Basically, he looked like the living dead again.
    “Hi!” Natalie said, smiling despite herself. “You look better.”
    He pulled the door back and motioned them in. “I feel better, though where the stake pierced will sting for some time to come.”
    Natalie nodded. When monsters were weak to something, they were freaking weak to it. It was the same for her with fire. One little burn from a stove top and it was almost impossible to bear for weeks. That was why Alec did so much of the cooking.
    Drake guided them into the living room Natalie hadn’t had time to admire a few days before. Rehu was sitting on the couch, looking utterly uncomfortable as he watched television. Igor had the remote and had chosen Project Runway as their entertainment of choice.
    Natalie looked around. Alec was nowhere to be seen. He was probably in the bathroom, but that didn’t stop her from being disappointed. Turned out she kind of needed a hug from the big dummy right now.
    “So how did it go?” Drake asked as he returned to his recliner, of all things.
    Natalie stared at the scene before her. Three guy monsters, just hangin’ out . . . watching a show about fashion. ’Cause that was normal.
    “Did you guys check Twitter?” she asked without answering his question.
    Drake nodded. “Still the same thing: #realmonstersNYC and the video are wildly popular.”
    “Shit,” she said with a sigh. “I figured as much.”
    “Okay, so what about Van Helsing?” Rehu asked with a scowl.
    “Um, I’d rather wait until Alec is here to talk about it,” Natalie said.
    “Why wait?” Rehu asked, then suddenly tilted his head at one of the fashions coming down the runway. “Now, that’s just hideous.”
    Natalie blinked, still confused by this very strange combination. “Well, why not wait? I’m sure he’ll want to hear it.”
    Igor glanced over at her. “He’s not here, honey.”
    Natalie stiffened. “What do you mean, ‘he’s not here’?”
    Rehu broke his attention away from the screen. “He got a call and started acting all weird about twenty minutes after we arrived, and then left.”
    Natalie stared at the group even harder. Alec didn’t have school tonight. He had been pretty clear with her that he was just going to hang out with Drake and wait out her report on what had happened at Van Helsing’s.
    “Where is Alec?” she asked. “Where did he go?”
    Rehu grabbed the remote from Igor and clicked mute so that Heidi Klum’s accent no longer filled the room.
    “Look, Natalie, I don’t know. He just got up, said he had somewhere to be, and left, okay?”
    “No,” she said, sinking into the closest seat as irrational fear mobbed her. “It’s not okay. It’s actually not okay at all. Something has happened to him. I can feel it.”

8
    It was thirty-six hours before Natalie saw Alec again. Actually, it was thirty-five hours, fourteen minutes, and twenty-eight seconds. She was counting, her emotions swinging from terror that something had happened to him, to rage that he had just roamed off without telling her, to absolute certainty that he had hooked up with a Brazilian model